


Upon Heaven's Throne

by Helenadorf



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, M/M, Religion, Religious Fanaticism, Slow Burn, discussions of religion, look these two are Space Catholics what do you expect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22831894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helenadorf/pseuds/Helenadorf
Summary: They say God provides what His children need. Following the end of the Great War, it is His decree that he brings together the Chief Justice and the Dark Evangelist for His mission, and along the way...It's love, and they both believe in it. But Tyrest struggles beneath the weight of what God asks, and Star Saber has never doubted his faith so strongly.
Relationships: Star Saber/Tyrest
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still in the process of trying to strong-arm the fandom into accepting my OTP
> 
> Also, I will fill this whole damn shipping tag myself if I have to
> 
> So! A series of vignettes, short fics about the progression of Star Saber/Tyrest in the context of MTMTE, generally canon-compliant until we get to the late-stage Lost Light/season 3. Also severely headcanon-filled, especially when it comes to Star Saber and his past.
> 
> Effectively, this is a ficlet collection masquerading as long-form fanfiction. Will it have dirty chapters? So far, no, but if I change my mind you'll see the rating change. For now it's mainly all the two of them talking, getting closer, all that good stuff. It starts pre-MTMTE, while Star Saber is still Saint Asshole of the Circle of Light.
> 
> So, enjoy!

*

Star Saber lived in a particular loop of thought.

It started, arguably, with his frustrations with Dai Atlas. Since the Holy War, Star Saber had been trying to convince him to press the crusade of Primus’ will on the rest of the universe. Just because the Great War was over, didn’t mean their people were at peace— there were still threats in every corner of the stars, polluting the galaxy with their heresy and ill will. Four million years had not earned their people peace so much as a deep, spiritual disturbance that _needed_ Primus’ warriors to resolve.

Dai Atlas would hear none of it. Star Saber’s best efforts resulted in nothing but hour-long arguments. The younger and more blasphemous members of the Circle had taken to mocking Star Saber when they thought he wasn’t listening. Star Saber hadn’t given up— he tried to rally other restless warriors, to no avail. He spoke to others, he preached his dreams of a unified Cybertronian race under Primus’ light, and even still no one believed in his vision.

It was demoralizing, and Star Saber resented Dai Atlas’ iron grip on the Circle’s ideology and its people. In his most agitated moments, he questioned why he’d ever thought Primus led him to the Circle in the first place. Then he remembered: it was either this, or to remain a pariah amongst the Autobots.

His last mission under the Prime hadn’t gone well. And that was the second stop on his circling train of thought: his fallen acolytes.

The final battle he’d fought with the Autobot badge on his shoulder had robbed him of three people who had been very dear to him. His acolytes had joined the church by his side before the war, fought by his side when it began, and devoted to him their utmost loyalty to the very end. Two of them, the brothers Braver and Laster, had assured his long-term survival in their work. They’d been instrumental in maintaining proper piety amongst the soldiers under his command, something he could not have thanked them enough for.

And Blacker…

Oh, _Blacker._

Blacker was a crate of scraplets Star Saber couldn’t even _begin_ to unpack, even half a million years after his death. Blacker had been… many things to Star Saber over the years. His first friend, his closest confidante, his potential _amica endura_ ; his unreliable lieutenant commander, his heretical acolyte, his burden. Blacker had been guilty of sin despite all of Star Saber’s efforts to steer him towards the path of God. Yet, Blacker had also unhesitantly sacrificed his life for Star Saber’s mission. He was disobedient, yet devoted. Argumentative, yet eager to please.

A succubus, yet Star Saber suspected that Blacker’s behaviour was not borne of lust alone.

On the most surface level, Star Saber’s efforts to keep Blacker in his place involved committing sins of his own. It was justified, for Blacker’s own good. And Blacker had enjoyed it thoroughly, even saying as much more than once. Yet, did that truly absolve Star Saber, when all was said and done? He’d never been attracted to Blacker to begin with, not in that way. But to keep a hedonist from sinking into the realm of demons, Star Saber had to offer something better.

Was it Blacker’s fault, then, for wanting more of the relationship? He’d confessed feelings Star Saber had never suspected of him. It threw much of what he knew about Blacker into question, right down to the very vices he had been trying to wrench out of Blacker’s hands. Did it change anything, or nothing? At the time, Star Saber had decided the latter. Blacker had done ill of his own volition, with no God-fearing reasoning behind it. It was sweet, but it was wrong.

Which led to the question of if Blacker’s death was Blacker’s redemption, or a punishment. If the latter, was it Blacker’s punishment, or Star Saber’s?

Because Blacker’s death didn’t end with him. Difficult as he was, he’d been the second-most powerful Autobot on Star Saber’s team next to Star Saber himself. Without him, Laster and Braver had been easy prey to be killed in that same battle.

Did Primus mean to tell Star Saber that _he_ had been the one in the wrong?

To that end, what was Star Saber’s tenure among the Circle of Light? Was it to suggest that Star Saber’s entire means of worship was wrong, and that he was supposed to be like Dai Atlas and the rest of his ilk? Or was it a temporary measure to test Star Saber’s loyalty, and to let the lesson of Blacker’s death sink in?

It surely couldn’t have been the former, Star Saber reassured himself. He had learned his worship from a very righteous mech. There were certain aspects to their Functionist Primalism that had been wrong, of course; the notion of rejecting sparkmates discomfited him even as he obeyed their order not to initiate _amica ritus_ with Blacker. But they hadn’t been wrong about devoting one’s life to God’s will, and they _certainly_ hadn’t been wrong about the danger of the Decepticons.

So, the Circle of Light _had_ to be wrong, and Dai Atlas in particular for refusing to act. And so the cycle began again in Star Saber’s mind, looping indefinitely to motivate his morning prayers.

He prayed to Primus for guidance and clarity in a time of difficulty. If Primus would, to please make His desires certain, and to lead Star Saber in the direction that He wanted him to go. Because to remain still did not serve God’s plan, _surely_ , and he had learned his lesson— that he had made a mistake in the past, and to please forgive him.

Star Saber made this request every morning for months now, ever since the war had ended. He was not impatient. He couldn’t be, with God. Primus was surely busy with the prayers of others, just as lost in the clearing smoke. His Chosen had to wait, and wait Star Saber would.

His spark could ache, but he could not demand anything of God.

But it was this morning, of all others, that he received a call following his morning prayers.

Admittedly, he was startled to hear the notification chime emerge from his comm unit. Nobody contacted him these days. Star Saber picked it up and got a look at his caller ID; unknown caller, from an unknown location. Those were not promising things to see.

He answered anyway. “Who is this?”

The voice on the other line was deep, a bit melodic, but moreover a very calm and collected sort. “Yes, hello. Is this Star Saber of Warrior’s Gate?”

“I am.” This person was seeking him in specific? “You’ve not answered…”

“I am Chief Justice Tyrest,” the caller answered. “And I would like to discuss God’s will with you.”

_That_ caught Star Saber’s attention.

He’d known of Chief Justice Tyrest since he was very young. Tyrest was older than most Cybertronians alive, remarkably well-aged already by the time he’d come online. He’d remembered, in his optimistic youth, thinking that Tyrest was a fascinating person. He was a scholar, well-spoken, very charming. Rather handsome of face as well, to the eyes of a little jet that hadn’t quite seen all there was to see out in the wide open world yet (not for lack of trying).

He’d been disappointed to learn that Tyrest was agnostic. His church hadn’t been fond of Tyrest for that reason, despite all of Tyrest’s work as Chief Engineer. In all fairness, it was under his watch that Nova Prime had been able to bring about spark-splicing, defiling the Matrix to bring to life a new generation of Cybertronians. Godless actions were a sin against creation that the church could not accept, and Saber had reluctantly agreed.

But of course, someone like Tyrest would never have seen the error of his ways, without believing in Primus. So it was no wonder that he didn’t, and would go on to become Chief Justice. It was thanks to him that the Circle of Light under Dai Atlas had been able to leave Cybertron as neutrals when the war broke out. In a way, Star Saber therefore had Tyrest to thank for his current situation.

But then, who was Tyrest to suddenly speak of God?

“Hardly a topic I expected _you_ to be the one to bring up,” Star Saber said coldly.

“I’m sure of that.” Tyrest’s tone was not dismissive, but… sympathetic? “And I wouldn’t blame you. I made no secret of my agnosticism back in the day.”

And Star Saber recalled— but he didn’t give much answer other than a curt “Hm.”

Still, Tyrest had won his interest. And short of little else to do at the moment, Star Saber decided he would indulge whatever Tyrest had in mind that saw him fit to be contacted. If nothing else, he knew enough about the Chief Justice to assume that it would be important in _some_ way, if not necessarily God’s way.

To that end, he invited: “Go on, then. What is it you want to say about God’s will?”

“I’ve converted, Star Saber,” Tyrest said. “But I’m sure it’s no secret to you that I’ve committed egregious sin. The invention of spark-splicing, a slight on Primus. But I also have a plan to _correct_ that mistake.”

Star Saber had to admit, it took a strong mech to confess and profess a plan to _correct_ his sin in the same breath. “Continue. What is this plan?”

Tyrest explained.

He was inventing a killswitch— a device which would trace the mark of the Matrix in the spark signatures of everyone who was born from it, therefore, everyone who has ever been constructed cold. Then, it would use that signature to kill every last one of them, leaving a world clean, with only the pure left behind.

As he explained the science behind it, Star Saber had to admit he was a little intrigued. He had recalled in abstract fact that Tyrest had been Chief Engineer, but even with that sinful invention in mind he’d never quite made the connection of how knowledgeable Tyrest truly was. Star Saber didn’t catch most jargon, but Tyrest didn’t speak in jargon. He explained it in words that Star Saber could understand.

Like Braver would do, on occasion, when Star Saber listened to him.

Star Saber listened, and he felt that pang of bittersweet nostalgia to be reminded of a gone friend. But he realized at some point in Tyrest’s speaking that something was missing, still.

“Where do I come in, then?” Star Saber asked. “Why do you tell me this?”

“Ah.” He could hear a smile in Tyrest’s voice. “I need subjects to test the killswitch on a wider scale, once I’ve tested to be sure that the forged won’t be harmed by it. And, I would like to prevent any… _future interference_.”

“Meaning?”

He heard Tyrest adjust himself in his seat on the other end of the line.

“You see, Dai Atlas has not been… _enthusiastic_ about my attempts to speak with him about my sin, and I don’t trust him to be compliant nor accepting of my plans with the killswitch.”

Star Saber couldn’t help the jump of his spark, that someone else found Dai Atlas so unreasonable as he did. And to hear it from Tyrest, the mech that had _allowed_ Dai Atlas such authority over others to begin with…

“I will need _your_ help, Star Saber, to test the killswitch. I trust in your reputation as a mech pure of creation, pure of beliefs. That’s why I’m telling you all this.”

And on the heels of that jump came a rush. There was a part of Star Saber concerned that Tyrest’s words were thick with flattery, but damn if it wasn’t working after centuries devoid of respect.

That said… his mind still niggled with doubts about Tyrest’s motivations and about how _easily_ he was able to capture Star Saber’s attention. Weren’t lawyer-types known for being smooth talkers, and Tyrest in particular fortunate enough to be born with the voice of an angel? The desire of his spark to accept Tyrest’s offer immediately could have been the pull of Unicron, intending to damn him.

Then he considered the _timing_ of the call.

Had he not just been praying, not twenty minutes ago, that he be guided? That God send him a sign, a way to serve Him, something to turn to?

_Is this not exactly what I wanted?_

Star Saber felt his fuel pump accelerate. It would be reckless to accept immediately, but…

“Do you need time to think about it?” Tyrest asked. “I know this is very sudden, and I’m asking quite a lot of you.”

“I-I would like to hear more,” Star Saber stammered, his voxcoder working of its own accord in disconnection with his brain. “Yes, I think I need to consider the implications of your request further. But I believe your mission is right, Chief Justice, and I’m a little shocked. Most can go their whole lives never seeing the light.”

“Admittedly, it took Primus Himself speaking to me,” Tyrest confessed, almost casually. “That is a tale of its own, and a long one. I’d almost rather tell it in person, or at least over video chat where you can see the proof.”

Primus Himself speaking to Tyrest? _Proof_? God Almighty and the Thirteen Primes.

“When can we speak again?” Star Saber asked. He tried not to sound overly excited.

“I’ll give you my comm details,” Tyrest replied. “And my schedule. As it stands, I must return to my work shortly, but we can speak again as early as tonight if the mission interests you. But, there is one thing I must ask of you now.”

“If it is secrecy, you have my word.” Star Saber crossed himself. “By the stars in the twilight over Warrior’s Gate, I will not speak a word of this to _anyone_.”

“Thank you, Star Saber.”

And with the promised information offered and noted down in Star Saber’s datapad, Tyrest bid him farewell and hung up. Star Saber’s fuel pump was _still_ racing when he set his comm down.

There was still the possibility that Tyrest was buttering him up to use him. A fine liar was made of the mech who could twist the truth beyond recognition. And as said before, Tyrest was not a virtuous character previously, and it was madness to believe him from a single conversation.

But that was the point of requesting further contact, wasn’t it? To see if he was being honest, and he offered the true will of God, or if he was simply sullying the name of Primus to serve his own ends. If that was the case, Star Saber wouldn’t hesitate to seek true justice for such an insult.

Admittedly, however, his spark felt young. Idealistic. He _wanted_ to believe Tyrest, and that was a feeling he’d not known in a very long time.

He just had to be cautious. Take a look at Tyrest’s _proof_ of God’s contact. Hear more of his plans. And next time, perhaps, not get too distracted by how pretty the words sounded to pay attention to their intent.

For the moment, however, he would ask Primus if He intended this to be His guidance, and thank him for that case— and promise that he would not be lead astray if Tyrest was doing this to turn him to sin. But there was a part of him that knew, maybe: God favoured those who acted, and Tyrest’s surest intent was to _act_.

Star Saber said he wanted to believe that, and feared perhaps that he already did.


	2. Chapter 2

*

Tyrest touched his fingers to the hole in the middle of his helm, beneath his crown. In the mirror he could see identical marks from other bouts of drilling across the plating of his arms, his chest, the rest of his body. It wasn’t pretty, but Tyrest had never been a vain mech.

His body presented the sin he was guilty of, and he left the marks to remind himself of that. He would have them properly fixed when he was free of it, when he had gone through with his God-given mission. So far, so good.

He had to admit, reaching out to Star Saber had gone better than anticipated. Star Saber was well known in the past half-million years for being unreasonable, argumentative, and aggressive. He’d seen that for himself at the start of the conversation, but once Tyrest explained what he wanted, Star Saber had changed his tune rather eagerly. He had to wonder: was it the mistaken impressions of former superiors who simply disagreed with the mech, or was it simply that they didn’t know how to communicate with someone like Star Saber?

Experience as the Chief Justice had assured Tyrest that he could communicate with just about anyone. It took reminding himself that not everyone was so clear on how to reason with others who, to the untrained mind, appeared ‘unreasonable’.

Tyrest was glad he’d been able to get through to Star Saber. The swordsman’s reputation was brutal, uncompromising, and sure-footed in its religious motivation. He was going to need someone like that in the coming days. It was a shame that he and Dai Atlas could no longer see eye-to-eye, but Tyrest loathed to linger on his losses.

At least, not losses like these. Holes easily filled by the introduction of something, or someone new.

Rather, he was more inclined to ruminate on his past sins, his beliefs, and everything he’d once been before the Aequitas Trials.

The irony of being the Chief Justice that created hundreds of thousands of criminals, both committed and in-waiting, wasn’t lost on him. It was a sick joke played by his own hubris, that he’d accepted the task assigned to him and done exactly what was asked of him without ever reflecting on the harm that could come from it. He hadn’t believed back then— openly so. At the time, he’d thought it made him a balancer between the extremism of Functionism and the practical agnosticism of his peers.

But he’d tipped the scales too far. Cybertron had paid the price. Aequitas had lain his sin bare, an open and bleeding wound on their society.

He hadn’t wanted to believe it at first. Who would, when the implications were so dire? Maybe he’d made a mistake with his machine. Maybe he’d been careless in coding it. After all, for every single cold-constructed mech to be declared _guilty_ was absurd, wasn’t it? But when he’d checked his work, it came back clean. There was no error.

The guilt had devoured him whole for months. The more he thought about it, the more he checked over the code with tired, unblinking eyes, the more he tried desperately to prove that something had gone wrong somewhere, he only found more evidence that the existence of the cold-constructed was the problem. Could he be blamed, then, for his eventual reaction? He’d tried to end it all. All guilt would be gone with punishment. The law he’d written couldn’t do it, the crime was too severe. But the hand that had written it…

Funny. All the millennia he’d been faithless, he’d thought nothing of that faithlessness. Like the crumbling of his present relationship with Dai Atlas, his spiritual beliefs— or lack thereof— were anther unimportant distraction from his life’s priorities.

But the moment he struck himself with his own drill, directly into his brain, he felt a light shine through so warm and welcoming that he could swear it was viscerally familiar.

Tyrest wasn’t sure _how_ that could be the case. In the earliest clear memories he had, he was already an agnostic being named Chief Technician under Nova Prime. There were a few scattered and fuzzy pieces from before, but none of them pieced together to suggest he’d ever been a believer. Maybe from a time even before then? Then, how far back? He was so old he couldn’t remember the number.

Or, maybe there was an innate understanding deep within all Cybertronians that the Gods were real. Something irrational but as certain as the stars in the sky. Maybe the decision to deny the Guiding Hand and reject their existence was a conscious choice, even if some mechs seemed to think it was only logical or the natural conclusion to come to. It could even be a matter of memory creep.

Perhaps he could take on a second task when he was done with his killswitch. After his ascension to Cyberutopia, he could seek to find a way to bring to light this truth, and prove to the world that the Gods were real and convert the whole of their race in one fell swoop. But, he had to finish his first mission, first and foremost.

He was looking forward to the chance to speak to Star Saber about this. It was very likely, after all, that a lifelong devout would have thought long and hard about such an idea.

But he could worry about asking Star Saber to walk him through the dawn of his newfound faith another day. His first priority, as ever, was the work he had ahead of him.

Tyrest slid his chair away from the main console for a moment. To end the day, he’d taken to looking over the Tyrest Accord and reading through the law he’d already finalized, to see where it might need to be modified to adjust not just to the end of the Great War but to his recent revelations. He wasn’t anywhere close to done, but he’d gotten through a fair bit of the first quarter today. That seemed work enough to step away for the day.

He would be expecting to continue the morning’s conversation with Star Saber soon, and he bore in mind a handful of goals for it. Firstly, to evaluate how much of Star Saber’s interest and enthusiasm for the mission was genuine, and to assure that he was not a tool of Dai Atlas. After all, for as righteous as Star Saber was proclaimed to be, evidence came first and foremost. Tyrest knew that well in his court of law.

Secondly, he wanted to get a better understanding of Star Saber as a person. If Star Saber was to become a variable in his mission to God, then he needed to be clear on how well the two of them worked together and meshed as individuals. He had an idea as was, but no one ever had a full grasp of another person from a single phone call.

Star Saber, it seemed, was a punctual sort first and foremost. Tyrest received the expected call about fifteen minutes after he’d set aside his work for the day, as outlined in the schedule he’d given Star Saber.

It was another voice call, on account of Star Saber not having a webcam. Besides that, Star Saber himself had stated outright that he wanted to hear more about Tyrest’s plans before he signed on. Within the week, the first problem would be solved— Tyrest planned to solve the second tonight. Recruiting Star Saber meant gaining his trust, and he knew full well that he had to offer a fair amount of his own to begin.

There was no previous record of Star Saber being a traitorous sort, but what Tyrest was asking would certainly make a traitor of him in the eyes of Dai Atlas and the Circle of Light.

Tyrest answered the call. “Chief Justice Tyrest speaking.”

“Yes. Good evening, Tyrest. I’d like to continue our discussion from this morning?”

Tyrest smiled to himself. “Of course. Go on and speak your mind, then— what was it you wanted me to explain further?”

On Star Saber’s end of the line, Tyrest could hear the sound of scrolling on a datapad. Tyrest wondered if Star Saber had decided to note down his questions, about the mission. Dutiful, he thought.

“Ah. Yes…” Star Saber seemed to have found what he was looking for. “You said you needed my help to test your killswitch. What did you mean by that, in the sense of… who are the test subjects?”

“I have been hoping to convince Dai Atlas to volunteer a portion of the Circle of Light,” Tyrest stated. “I didn’t give him the full details of what the experiment would be, and he said no. I suppose he expected it to be sinister.”

Tyrest had explained his recent revelations to Dai Atlas, and Dai Atlas had rejected them outright. He’d called the inherent sin of the cold-constructed a “ridiculous, archaic concept” and seemed to not understand how Tyrest had come to such a conclusion. He supposed even he could fail to convince some— and such a thing couldn’t be helped.

Star Saber, on the other hand, seemed to get it. “Shameful,” he said. Star Saber paused, then continued. “Of course, if you plan to acquire a significant number of test subjects, I’m afraid I’ll have a hard time trying to wrangle up any willing candidates, myself. There’s always the more _forceful_ method…”

“Do you think it’ll come to that, Star Saber?”

Tyrest’s question seemed to catch Star Saber off-guard. “Pardon?”

Tyrest knew better than to indulge the entirety of his plan, line-by-line, step-by-step, so soon. To serve both of the goals he’d laid out for himself before the start of this call, he needed to test what Star Saber was willing to say on his own terms. He repeated his question, and waited for the response.

There was a noteworthy silence before Star Saber answered. “I think it’s very likely, yes. Dai Atlas is extremely strong-minded, and has enforced the same among the members of the Circle of Light. The people of Crystal City are repulsed by ideology outside of their belief system, and sadly, it’s narrow enough that even my own is incompatible with it.”

There was a promising sign in such a confession., that he had already butted heads with Dai Atlas on the subject. Yet, he didn’t miss the potential double-meaning in ‘enforcing strong-mindedness in the Circle of Light’. “How do you mean?” Tyrest prompted.

“I’ve… had my own disagreements with Dai Atlas in the past, regarding what the Circle of Light’s mission should be and what we should be doing in the present era. In the past I’ve advocated for active cleansing of the cosmos, to prevent anything such as the Great War from happening again. I’ve also called again for action now that it’s over, and there are Cybertronians scattered farther than the galactic maps are drawn with no hope and no faith in their sparks. He’s shut me down on all accounts.”

“Active cleansing. Of whom?”

“Those who do not believe in Primus.”

Ah. Tyrest could see now why Star Saber had a reputation as someone _unreasonable_.

Still, it didn’t bother him. Star Saber so far had been cooperative with _him_ , and so long as he could assure where Star Saber’s loyalties were, he had no concern of the matter. All it had taken for him to change his tune this morning was to hear that Tyrest was himself no longer someone who didn’t believe in Primus.

“You don’t think conversion is possible?” he asked, bearing that in mind.

“Of course I do. But…” The datapad from earlier was set aside. “Even that, I feel, he would never agree to. He’s under the impression that if a person does not believe, it’s not anyone’s business but their own. That seems wrong to me. Should others not be saved? And if they do not want to be saved, what is the difference between them and those who would actively seek to damn others?”

“It takes different things, I think,” Tyrest said, “For different people to be convinced of God. Some want proof. Others are cynical, and believe that He would not allow the horrors of this world if He truly existed and loved us.”

“Such things aren’t His fault,” Star Saber protested.

“Of course not.”

“Still… I see the ideal world as one that unanimously accepts Primus and adheres to His wishes. That shouldn’t be such a radical notion, and yet, it seems it is.”

That depended on how one _defined_ God’s wishes and what counted as the acceptance of Him. Such a thing was exactly why the Functionists were torn from their seat of power by the Decepticons, after all, with the Senate slaughtered and war declared. Of course, that bore to mind…

“What is your stance on Functionism, Star Saber?” Tyrest asked, ostensibly changing the subject.

“On Functionism?” Star Saber paused. “I… hm.”

“Do you remember it? It’s been a long time since anyone has so much as said the word.”

“No, I remember. I was already a few thousand years old when I heard about the ideology. I confess, I have a certain _history_ with it, one that’s a bit long and difficult to describe. But I’ll say that never did I fully embrace Functionism as an ideology.”

Right, Star Saber was rather old. As old as him? Older? Tyrest wasn’t sure. But to confess that he identified with _any_ of the ideology was a very telling gesture of trust, and he asked Star Saber to explain what he meant by that.

“I think Primus is more lenient than Functionism suggests with the dictation of life purpose,” Star Saber said. “If a sport car has a talent for science, for example, it is entirely within his rights to pursue that rather than leave the field strictly to microscopes and particle accelerators. You yourself are an accomplished technician despite being a jet, as another example.”

“That’s correct. I was lucky enough to break through before Functionism had become an unescapable fixture on Cybertronian society.”

“Lucky, indeed.” Star Saber paused a moment, then continued. “I also don’t believe in the denial of sparkmates. Primus gave us emotions and means to communicate with the very _intent_ to love one another. If mechs were limited to their jobs alone, they’d go mad.”

Very sound, and rather interesting to hear from a born warrior. Love and war went hand-in-hand, Tyrest supposed.

“But there are aspects that you _do_ agree with.”

“Primarily, with regards to the cold-constructed— as you yourself have recognized— and the importance of Primus in society. That’s all.”

And that was something Tyrest could work with and even agree with. He would have to learn the full tenor of Star Saber’s beliefs over time. For now, he’d learned enough about him that he felt Star Saber was being honest about his motivations. He believed in Tyrest’s cause, and was invested in the mission before ever saying aloud that he agreed to it.

“I suppose you ask for the sake of not hiring a Functionist for your righteous cause?” Star Saber himself seemed to understand that his compliance was all but guaranteed.

“You’ve sufficiently reassured me,” Tyrest replied. “But moreover, I was looking to see how much your vision aligned with Dai Atlas’. I’m pleased to hear your understanding of the world is very different from his.”

“Ah, I understand. As I’ve said, I’ve had my own problems with him for ages. Going back to said plan… how do you plan to find candidates for the experiment, if you don’t suspect any willing volunteers?”

“How _do_ you feel about the forceful route, Star Saber?”

“I find its effectiveness undeniable.”

“Then I do plan to take it.”

“I’m more than happy to be on board, in that case.”

Tyrest smiled.

The rest of their discussion, then, became one of the _forceful route_. Tyrest explained the existence of the Legislators, and how he planned to break into Crystal City and take the Circle of Light by force. Star Saber listened, and Tyrest could hear between his own words that Star Saber was taking notes on his datapad. Star Saber’s first task, thus, was to let them in when Tyrest’s forces arrived.

Star Saber supplied a great deal of information of his own, how he supposed he could go about letting them in when he wasn’t in charge of Crystal City’s defense. The security detail were less familiar with him and, if push came to shove, would be effortless for him to overpower. There were also certain entry points into the city which were more or less guarded than others.

He’d also, happily, corrected what Tyrest relayed of old maps from last he’d seen of the city. Certain renovations, upgrades, and areas of most concern. Revised combat stratagem so that the Legislators would not be caught off-guard by the prowess of Dai Atlas’ warriors.

Over the course of the conversation, Tyrest recognized clearly that Star Saber was more than a willing partnership, and more than a disgruntled underling aching for a way to act on his own beliefs and will. He was a genuine power of his own, stifled under the rigidity of a sect he didn’t agree with, under circumstances which weren’t his fault. To some degree, Tyrest could relate, though in his case it was his own fault.

Star Saber could help him. And Tyrest knew he could help Star Saber, in turn.

Before he knew it, he was several new pages into the battle plan and it was well past the time to turn in for the night— as close as it could be to night living on Luna 1. He was reluctant to point it out, as Star Saber was in the middle of giving him more vital intel, when Star Saber seemed to realize the hour for himself.

“Ah. I apologize,” he said. “It’s gotten incredibly late.”

“There’s no need to apologize,” Tyrest replied smoothly. “It speaks to your enthusiasm on the mission. I appreciate it entirely.”

“It’s hardly even the last thing I wanted to discuss with you.”

“We have the time over the next few weeks. Do you still have my information?”

“Of course.”

Confirming such, they made plans to speak again the evening after— perhaps regularly, until the time of the mission. Afterwards would be up to future discussion, but by the time Star Saber bid him farewell and hung up, Tyrest realized there was a rush to the beat of his fuel pump.

Was it excitement that things were going according to plan? Perhaps. Certainly he’d been able to affirm Star Saber’s intended loyalty and obtained new information that would help him do as he was bidden. He could not imagine his task going more smoothly.

There was something more to it.

Tyrest had been alone since the Aequitas Trials, outside of his deals with Lockdown. The Legislators didn’t count as company. Star Saber was, in effect, the first mech Tyrest had spoken to on a personal level in months. To that end… to have a regular conversational partner and ally was something he’d not realized until just now he wanted.

He believed the thought that God had guided him with purpose towards Star Saber. He looked forward to understanding the full extent of said purpose.


End file.
